Performance assessment of a solar tower assisted combined cycle power plant using supercritical carbon dioxide as a heat transfer fluid

摘要

The aim of the present research is to investigate the detailed exergo-environmental analysis of solar-assisted power and hydrogen production system in addition to the energetic and exergetic analysis. The proposed system consists of five sub-systems (heliostat field, solar tower, gas cycle, steam cycle and an electrolyser). Mathematical model is developed using engineering equation solver (EES) to investigate the integrated system according to the thermodynamic point of view and parametric study is conducted to access the impact of key parameters on the overall performance of the integrated system. The results reveal that thermal efficiency of the receiver is noticed to be 72%, whereas 42% is observed for the power cycle. The integrated first and second law efficiencies of power plant are 20.93% and 22.51%, accordingly. Exergo-environmental impact index decreases to 33.66% by increasing direct normal irradiation which is considered to be a favourable indicator for the environment.